Three Things You Must Do Before You Submit To Article Directories

To all writers and non-writers out there, now is the time to start digging up those creative writing skills.With modern communication technology comes the popularity of information-based marketing, which is one of the oldest and most effective techniques in getting targeted prospects to sites and converting them into buyers. This is

As search engines become more expansive and continue to offer more options for searching specific sets of information (products, businesses, entertainment, etc) this also means that there are more ways for you to get your website included in search engine results. Yahoo! lists nine ways to submit your websites and content to be included in their index.

The easiest way to submit to Yahoo! is through their free submission page. While this is extremely easy and quick, there is little evidence that this actually provides a quick inclusion into Yahoo's index. In the event that your site is compatible with mobile browsers, there is also a special page to submit your mobile website to Yahoo!. Yahoo! also provides a resource to submit media content (audio, video, etc) although this requires a specially formatted RSS feed.

In addition to the free submission options, you can choose to essentially bribe Yahoo! into giving your website preferential treatment for a mere $50. This gets you a guaranteed inclusion within 48 hours and a more frequent revisit rate. For those that have a larger marketing budget and want more control over their site placement in results pages, they can opt for the sponsored inclusion. This is basically a parallel to Google's Adwords program in that each allow you to control your position depending on your top bid for specific keywords.

Finally, there is also the Yahoo! Directory. At one time, being included in the Yahoo! Directory was thought to give websites tremendous boost in all search engine rankings. Lately there has been much speculation that this has been heavily devalued in other search engines like Google and MSN. The request for inclusion requires an annual $300 application fee that does not guarantee your acceptance. And if your website is denied, there is no refund. If that wasn't enough to discourage website owners from submitting, Yahoo! also reserves the right to place you into whatever category they see fit and change your title tag and description too.

For most websites, the free submissions and good search engine optimization practices should be sufficient. But for those that have the budget and want the fast track there are some other options available although their effectiveness has been highly debated.

Zach Brown has been involved with multimedia and web development for over 5 years and is currently the project manager for BuzzSEO, a full service internet marketing and website optimization firm. BuzzSEO provides complete internet marketing capabilities including web design, search engine optimization, and email marketing.